Director, Architecture Lead

At BNY, our culture allows us to run our company better and enables employees’ growth and success. As a leading global financial services company at the heart of the global financial system, we influence nearly 20% of the world’s investible assets. Every day, our teams harness cutting-edge AI and breakthrough technologies to collaborate with clients, driving transformative solutions that redefine industries and uplift communities worldwide.

Recognized as a top destination for innovators, BNY is where bold ideas meet advanced technology and exceptional talent. Together, we power the future of finance – and this is what #Life AtBNY is all about. Join us and be part of something extraordinary.

BNY is seeking a Director-level Architect to lead enterprise architecture for Compliance Engineering with deep technical expertise in banking payments (SWIFT, ACH, RTP) and strong knowledge of Financial Crime (with emphasis on Anti-Money Laundering, and Market Abuse). This leader will define and drive high-performance, resilient, and compliant technology designs, collaborating across engineering, data, compliance, and business stakeholder groups to deliver secure, scalable, and standards-aligned solutions.

Key Responsibilities:

Architecture Leadership

• Define end-to-end target and transitional architectures for payments and compliance platforms, integrating SWIFT, ACH, RTP, and related rails.

• Establish and maintain reference architectures, design patterns, and guardrails that meet performance, resiliency (RTO/RPO), security, and compliance objectives.

• Lead architecture reviews, threat modeling, and resiliency assessments; ensure adherence to standards and best practices.

• Design, Documentation, and Communication

• Rapidly produce high-quality designs, diagrams, sequence and data flow models, and documentation that are clear, consistent, and actionable.

• Communicate complex topics simply for compliance, business stakeholders, and regulators; engage in deep technical discussions with developers, data engineers, and SREs.

• Translate regulatory requirements (e.g., AML/KYC, data retention, transaction monitoring) into technical designs and control implementation guidance.

• Payments and Financial Crime Expertise

• Architect solutions for transaction monitoring, surveillance, and other core Compliance capabilities.

• Partner with Financial Crime teams to design detection, investigation, and reporting capabilities; align technology to typologies and risk indicators.

• Ensure designs meet or exceed standards for security, privacy, auditability, traceability, and regulatory expectations.

Data Architecture and Quality

• Define critical data elements (CDEs), data models, lineage, mapping, and data quality rules for payments and compliance domains.

• Drive metadata management, master/reference data strategies, and robust data controls across ingestion, processing, storage, and consumption.

• Collaborate with data engineering for scalable pipelines, streaming, and batch processing; ensure data reliability, timeliness, and completeness.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Work across Compliance Engineering and partner platforms/practices to deliver integrated solutions; facilitate design decisions and trade-offs.

• Mentor architects and engineers; cultivate a collaborative, high-performing culture aligned to BNY principles (Be Client Obsessed, Spark Progress, Own It, Stay Curious, Thrive Together).

• Contribute to roadmap planning, capacity and cost optimization, and operational excellence.

Qualifications:

• 10+ years in software/solution/data/enterprise architecture with prior hands-on engineering experience (e.g., application development, integration, data engineering).

• Proven delivery of large-scale, mission-critical payment systems and/or financial crime platforms in regulated financial services environments.

• Technical Depth

• Deep understanding of payment rails and formats (e.g., SWIFT MT/ISO 20022, NACHA/ACH, RTP), messaging, clearing/settlement flows, and exception handling.

• Strong data architecture expertise: relational and distributed databases, schema design, CDE definition, data quality, lineage, mapping, and governance.

• Integration patterns (APIs, event streaming, messaging), microservices, and distributed systems performance and resiliency engineering.

• Security and compliance controls: encryption, key management, identity/authorization, logging/monitoring, auditability, and regulatory reporting.

• Communication & Leadership

• Excellent written and verbal communication; adept at simplifying complex technical concepts for non-technical audiences and regulators.

• Effective collaborator and influencer; able to lead design forums, resolve technical conflicts, and drive consensus across teams.

Preferred Qualifications

• Education: Bachelor’s or Master’s in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field.

• Certifications: Relevant cloud (e.g., Azure/AWS), data (e.g., data management/governance), security (e.g., CISSP), AML/Financial Crime (e.g., CAMS) are a plus.

• Tooling Proficiency: Industry-standard diagramming and modeling tools (e.g., UML/BPMN), data modeling tools, and documentation frameworks; experience with CI/CD and Infrastructure-as-Code is beneficial.

• Standards & Practices: Familiarity with ISO 20022, NACHA rules, SWIFT CSP, NIST/industry security standards, and operational risk/resiliency frameworks.

Success Measures

• High-quality architectures that meet performance, resiliency, security, and compliance requirements and pass governance reviews.

• Clear, consistent documentation and diagrams enabling efficient delivery and audit readiness.

• Measurable improvements in system reliability, throughput/latency, data quality, and incident reduction.

• Strong cross-team collaboration and stakeholder satisfaction across Compliance, Engineering, and business functions.

BNY Alignment

• Strategic Pillars: Be More for our Clients; Run our Company Better; Power our Culture.

• Principles: Be Client Obsessed; Spark Progress; Own It; Stay Curious; Thrive Together.

• Equal Opportunity BNY is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We value diversity, equity, and inclusion, and welcome candidates from all backgrounds.

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• America’s Most Innovative Companies, Fortune, 2025

• World’s Most Admired Companies, Fortune 2025

• “Most Just Companies”, Just Capital and CNBC, 2025

Our Benefits and Rewards:

BNY offers highly competitive compensation, benefits, and wellbeing programs rooted in a strong culture of excellence and our pay-for-performance philosophy. We provide access to flexible global resources and tools for your life’s journey. Focus on your health, foster your personal resilience, and reach your financial goals as a valued member of our team, along with generous paid leaves, including paid volunteer time, that can support you and your family through moments that matter.

• BNY is an Equal Employment Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer
• Underrepresented racial and ethnic groups/Females/Individuals with Disabilities/Protected Veterans.